Blog
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager
Tapping Your
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager's Inner Motivation
This article addresses some practical
concerns raised by parents in response to my suggestion
that praising too much is actually counter-productive
while trying to motivate our Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenagerren. "But if I stop
giving my Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren praise and rewards they won’t be
motivated to do anything!"
parenting advice,
discipline, motivating your Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenager, intrinsic motivation,
punished by rewards, external validation, self-esteem
This article addresses some practical questions
raised by parents in response to my suggestion that
praising too much is actually counter-productive while
trying to motivate our Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor &
Teenagerren.
<b>~~ But if I’m
not praising and not punishing, what do I do instead?
~~</b>
Try simply communicating your sincere
admiration, gratitude, and appreciation when it arises.
When your Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager does something admirable, let him know
how you feel. “Wow! Do I count 20 towers on that sand
castle?!” instead of “Good building, Johnny!” The
difference is that when you admire or appreciate, you
join him in his experience and there’s an alignment.
When you praise, you derail his train and bring it over
to your track.
When you are grateful for your
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager’s help, say so. When she shares a little known
fact that she learned at school, your interest and
attention are the reward. Becoming a valued and
contributing member of the family and society is much
more of a reinforcement than grades or a gold stars.
Try treating your Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor &
Teenager like you’d treat an adult
neighbor or coworker. I don’t see my neighbors getting
smiley stickers when they shovel their driveway or weed
their garden, even if they do a really good job. And no
one says, “Good gardening, Joe!”
Nonetheless, a
well-maintained yard is a pleasure for the whole
neighborhood, and I can let them know that I enjoy the
fruits of their labors without praising them. A quiet
and sincere comment of acknowledgment and appreciation
goes a long way.
The difference lies in the
intention. Kids recognize from a mile away that praise
is really a sugarcoated agenda. Most of them prefer and
respond positively to sincerity. Wouldn’t you?
<b>~~But if I stop giving rewards they won’t be
motivated to do anything! ~~</b>
We each do
dozens of things every day for no external reward. We
sew or knit or paint or do woodworking just for fun. We
strive to decrease our time or improve our score just
for the thrill of growth and mastery. We wash dishes so
we can eat from clean plates later. We stop at red
lights even when there are no police cars in sight,
because we want to arrive at our destination in one
piece.
Babies learn to walk because their
developing bodies drive them to do so, not because we
clap and cheer at their first steps! It really is ok to
leave them alone with their process. I’m not saying we
can’t share in their delight. But they learn to walk
even without any gold stars.
Doesn’t this make
you wonder how many other accomplishments might be
motivated by a similar internal drive if given the
chance? Wouldn’t it be great to just relax and trust
this intrinsic impulse?
If this subject intrigues
you, be sure to check out the book <b>Punished by
Rewards</b> by Alfie Kohn. It’s a fascinating read!
copyright karen alonge 2006
The Narcissist as
Eternal Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager
"Puer Aeternus" – the eternal adolescent, the
semipternal Peter pan – is a phenomenon often associated
with pathological narcissism. People who refuse to grow
up strike others as self-centred and aloof, petulant and
brattish, haughty and demanding – in short: as Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerish
or infantile.
"Puer Aeternus" – the eternal
adolescent, the semipternal Peter pan – is a phenomenon
often associated with pathological narcissism. People
who refuse to grow up strike others as self-centred and
aloof, petulant and brattish, haughty and demanding – in
short: as Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerish or infantile.
The narcissist
is a partial adult. He seeks to avoid adulthood.
Infantilisation – the discrepancy between one's advanced
chronological age and one's retarded behaviour,
cognition, and emotional development – is the
narcissist's preferred art form. Some narcissists even
use a Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerish tone of voice occasionally and adopt a
toddler's body language.
But most narcissist
resort to more subtle means.
They reject or avoid
adult chores and functions. They refrain from acquiring
adult skills (such as driving) or an adult's formal
education. They evade adult responsibilities towards
others, including and especially towards their nearest
and dearest. They hold no steady jobs, never get
married, raise no family, cultivate no roots, maintain
no real friendships or meaningful relationships.
Many a narcissist remains attached to his (or her)
family of origin. By clinging to his parents, the
narcissist continues to act in the role of a Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager. He
thus avoids the need to make adult decisions and
(potentially painful) choices. He transfers all adult
chores and responsibilities – from laundry to
baby-sitting – to his parents, siblings, spouse, or
other relatives. He feels unshackled, a free spirit,
ready to take on the world (in other words omnipotent
and omnipresent).
Such "delayed adulthood" is
very common in many poor and developing countries,
especially those with patriarchal societies. I wrote in
"The Last Family":
"To the alienated and schizoid
ears of Westerners, the survival of family and community
in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) sounds like an
attractive proposition. A dual purpose safety net, both
emotional and economic, the family in countries in
transition provides its members with unemployment
benefits, accommodation, food and psychological advice
to boot.
Divorced daughters, saddled with little
(and not so little) ones, the prodigal sons incapable of
finding a job befitting their qualifications, the sick,
the unhappy – all are absorbed by the compassionate
bosom of the family and, by extension the community. The
family, the neighbourhood, the community, the village,
the tribe – are units of subversion as well as useful
safety valves, releasing and regulating the pressures of
contemporary life in the modern, materialistic, crime
ridden state.
The ancient blood feud laws of the
kanoon were handed over through familial lineages in
northern Albania, in defiance of the paranoiac Enver
Hoxha regime. Criminals hide among their kin in the
Balkans, thus effectively evading the long arm of the
law (state). Jobs are granted, contracts signed and
tenders won on an open and strict nepotistic basis and
no one finds it odd or wrong. There is something
atavistically heart-warming in all this.
Historically, the rural units of socialisation and
social organisation were the family and the village. As
villagers migrated to the cities, these structural and
functional patterns were imported by them, en masse. The
shortage of urban apartments and the communist invention
of the communal apartment (its tiny rooms allocated one
per family with kitchen and bathroom common to all) only
served to perpetuate these ancient modes of
multi-generational huddling. At best, the few available
apartments were shared by three generations: parents,
married off-spring and their Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenagerren. In many cases,
the living space was also shared by sickly or no-good
relatives and even by unrelated families.
These
living arrangements – more adapted to rustic open spaces
than to high rises – led to severe social and
psychological dysfunctions. To this very day, Balkan
males are spoiled by the subservience and servitude of
their in-house parents and incessantly and compulsively
catered to by their submissive wives. Occupying someone
else's home, they are not well acquainted with adult
responsibilities.
Stunted growth and stagnant
immaturity are the hallmarks of an entire generation,
stifled by the ominous proximity of suffocating,
invasive love. Unable to lead a healthy sex life behind
paper thin walls, unable to raise their Child, Juvenile,
Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren and as
many Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren as they see fit, unable to develop
emotionally under the anxiously watchful eye of their
parents – this greenhouse generation is doomed to a
zombie-like existence in the twilight nether land of
their parents' caves. Many ever more eagerly await the
demise of their caring captors and the promised land of
their inherited apartments, free of their parents'
presence.
The daily pressures and exigencies of
co-existence are enormous. The prying, the gossip, the
criticism, the chastising, the small agitating
mannerisms, the smells, the incompatible personal habits
and preferences, the pusillanimous bookkeeping – all
serve to erode the individual and to reduce him or her
to the most primitive mode of survival. This is further
exacerbated by the need to share expenses, to allocate
labour and tasks, to plan ahead for contingencies, to
see off threats, to hide information, to pretend and to
fend off emotionally injurious behaviour. It is a
sweltering tropic of affective cancer."
Alternatively, by acting as surrogate caregiver to his
siblings or parents, the narcissist displaces his
adulthood into a fuzzier and less demanding territory.
The social expectations from a husband and a father are
clear-cut. Not so from a substitute, mock, or ersatz
parent. By investing his efforts, resources, and
emotions in his family of origin, the narcissist avoids
having to establish a new family and face the world as
an adult. His is an "adulthood by proxy", a vicarious
imitation of the real thing.
The ultimate in
dodging adulthood is finding God (long recognised as a
father-substitute), or some other "higher cause". The
believer allows the doctrine and the social institutions
that enforce it to make decisions for him and thus
relieve him of responsibility. He succumbs to the
paternal power of the collective and surrenders his
personal autonomy. In other words, he is a Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager once
more. Hence the allure of faith and the lure of dogmas
such as nationalism or Communism or liberal democracy.
But why does the narcissist refuse to grow up? Why
does he postpone the inevitable and regards adulthood as
a painful experience to be avoided at a great cost to
personal growth and self-realisation? Because remaining
essentially a toddler caters to all his narcissistic
needs and defences and nicely tallies with the
narcissist's inner psychodynamic landscape.
Pathological narcissism is an infantile defence against
abuse and trauma, usually occurring in early Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerhood
or early adolescence. Thus, narcissism is inextricably
entwined with the abused Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor
& Teenager's or adolescent's
emotional make-up, cognitive deficits, and worldview. To
say "narcissist" is to say "thwarted, tortured Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager".
It is important to remember that overweening,
smothering, spoiling, overvaluing, and idolising the
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager – are all forms of parental abuse. There is
nothing more narcissistically-gratifying than the
admiration and adulation (Narcissistic Supply) garnered
by precocious Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager-prodigies (Wunderkinder).
Narcissists who are the sad outcomes of excessive
pampering and sheltering become addicted to it.
In a paper published in Quadrant in 1980 and titled
"Puer Aeternus: The Narcissistic Relation to the Self",
Jeffrey Satinover, a Jungian analyst, offers these
astute observations:
"The individual
narcissistically bound to (the image or archetype of the
divine Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager) for identity can experience satisfaction
from a concrete achievement only if it matches the
grandeur of this archetypal image. It must have the
qualities of greatness, absolute uniqueness, of being
the best and … prodigiously precocious. This latter
quality explains the enormous fascination of Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager
prodigies, and also explains why even a great success
yields no permanent satisfaction for the puer: being an
adult, no accomplishment is precocious unless he stays
artificially young or equates his accomplishments with
those of old age (hence the premature striving after the
wisdom of those who are much older)."
The simple
truth is that Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren get away with narcissistic traits
and behaviours. Narcissists know that. They envy
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren, hate them, try to emulate them and, thus,
compete with them for scarce Narcissistic Supply.
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren are forgiven for feeling grandiose and
self-important or even encouraged to develop such
emotions as part of "building up their self-esteem".
Kids frequently exaggerate with impunity
accomplishments, talents, skills, contacts, and
personality traits – exactly the kind of conduct that
narcissists are chastised for!
As part of a
normal and healthy development trajectory, young
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren are as obsessed as narcissists are with
fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or
omnipotence, and unequalled brilliance. Adolescent are
expected to be preoccupied with bodily beauty or sexual
performance (as is the somatic narcissist), or ideal,
everlasting, all-conquering love or passion. What is
normal in the first 16 years of life is labelled a
pathology later on.
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenagerren are firmly convinced
that they are unique and, being special, can only be
understood by, should only be treated by, or associate
with, other special or unique, or high-status people. In
time, through the process of socialisation, young adults
learn the benefits of collaboration and acknowledge the
innate value of each and every person. Narcissists never
do. They remain fixated in the earlier stage.
Preteens and teenagers require excessive admiration,
adulation, attention and affirmation. It is a transient
phase that gives place to the self-regulation of one's
sense of inner worth. Narcissists, however, remain
dependent on others for their self-esteem and
self-confidence. They are fragile and fragmented and
thus very susceptible to criticism, even if it is merely
implied or imagined.
Well into pubescence,
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren feel entitled. As toddlers, they demand
automatic and full compliance with their unreasonable
expectations for special and favourable priority
treatment. They grow out of it as they develop empathy
and respect for the boundaries, needs, and wishes of
other people. Again, narcissists never mature, in this
sense.
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren, like adult narcissists, are
"interpersonally exploitative", i.e., use others to
achieve their own ends. During the formative years (0-6
years old), Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren are devoid of empathy. They are
unable to identify with, acknowledge, or accept the
feelings, needs, preferences, priorities, and choices of
others.
Both adult narcissists and young Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren
are envious of others and sometimes seek to hurt or
destroy the causes of their frustration. Both groups
behave arrogantly and haughtily, feel superior,
omnipotent, omniscient, invincible, immune, "above the
law", and omnipresent (magical thinking), and rage when
frustrated, contradicted, challenged, or confronted.
The narcissist seeks to legitimise his Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager-like
conduct and his infantile mental world by actually
remaining a Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenager, by refusing to mature and to grow up,
by avoiding the hallmarks of adulthood, and by forcing
others to accept him as the Puer Aeternus, the Eternal
Youth, a worry-free, unbounded, Peter Pan.
The Pink Kit Method
- a comprehensive, new and unique approach to Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth
preparation, labour management and coaching skills for
expectant parents
There are 4 foundations to The Pink Kit
Method for birthing body™. The 1st foundation has been
put into the multi-media resource called The Pink Kit:
Essential Preparations for your birthing body. In the
video and interactive book, expectant parents will learn
the body knowledge that makes such common sense you’ll
wonder why you haven’t known it before. We can map our
pelvis and know our own shape. That shape helps us find
positions that keep us open rather than assume that
certain positions are better than others. We can create
inner relaxation with the pelvic clock and create more
space for our baby with the hip lift, sacral manoeuvre
and sit bone spread. We can use a type of directed
breathing that we can use to focus our attention, expand
or relax specific areas of our body.
birthing,
human behaviours, baby, parents, Child, Juvenile,
Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth, pain,
labour, breathing, exercise, hospital, doctor, medical
There are 4 foundations to The Pink Kit Method for
birthing body™. The 1st foundation has been put into the
multi-media resource called The Pink Kit: Essential
Preparations for your birthing body. In the video and
interactive book, expectant parents will learn the body
knowledge that makes such common sense you’ll wonder why
you haven’t known it before. We can map our pelvis and
know our own shape. That shape helps us find positions
that keep us open rather than assume that certain
positions are better than others. We can create inner
relaxation with the pelvic clock and create more space
for our baby with the hip lift, sacral manoeuvre and sit
bone spread. We can use a type of directed breathing
that we can use to focus our attention, expand or relax
specific areas of our body.
Child, Juvenile,
Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth is a
simple plumbing exercise. An object has to come through
and out of a container. To do that it must pass through
a tube (pelvis), open a diaphragm (cervix) and aperture
(vagina). The object likes space, room and not to have
its passage bent.
In the multi-media kit is
located the 2nd foundation of The Pink Kit Method on an
audio tape called The Internal Work. This is the vital
internal work or how to prepare your birth canal … the
aperture. The plumbing concept of birth seems easy yet
some things get in the way. We are the container. We
bring to Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth our structure, our ability to relax
or tense up and accept the process of Child, Juvenile,
Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth which
can be very painful or fight against it. The goal of The
Pink Kit Method is for each of us to create mobility and
flexibility in our structure and learn to relax even
when the sensations are very painful. Fortunately we can
use our incredible human mind and make choices about our
behaviours when we have the skills based on our
preparation. We can only make realistic choices in our
behaviours when we have the knowledge. The Pink Kit is
the knowledge. Preparing our birth canal:
·
Creates a soft aperture for our baby to come through.
· Teaches us to respond to the sensations in 2nd stage
rather than react. (Feeling we will have a bowel motion,
the stinging sensations of the stretching can cause
women to pull back from the down urge.)
· Prevents
trauma to the soft tissue of our vagina.
An
adjunctive resource was developed to step you through
The Pink Kit video called Companion Guide. Although the
sections in the video are easy to follow, many people
wanted written instructions as well. This resource also
introduces 3 new exercises: Kate’s Cat, Thai Massage,
Letting Down Reflex along with two new concepts: Common
language which develops good communication with your
partner/husband and the concept that there are defined
skills for the Birth and Coach Role. These concepts are
expanded in the 4th foundation New Focus: Breath,
Language and Touch.
Primarily the stories we told
about Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth were about the physical experience we
had. We spoke about pain, or lack of it. We had back
labours, failure to dilate, babies that stayed high in
the pelvis, vaginas that tore, were cut or didn’t open
easily or ones that opened in one contraction. We had
quick, very intense births and painless ones. We had
long, lingering labours that didn’t seem to get started
and when they did we were dog tired. Story after story
told of us that birth is primarily a physical
experience. Some of those experiences were absolutely
wonderful. Many women do just ‘get labour’.
Realistically, many women don’t get labour. The use of
medical pain relief is an attempt to prevent women from
suffering too much pain in the process of Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth. If
women were really ‘getting labour’ they won’t be using
pain relief.
In our stories, we spoke about
residual pain or lack of it. Residual pain often lasted
for months or years and often laid a foundation to an
unsettled early parenting period. We couldn’t sit down,
move our bowels, had burning when we urinated, pain on
sex, vaginal wind, infections from tears or incisions,
along with pain in our pubic bone or tail bone. Some
women breezed through labour and the recovery. The Pink
Kit Method just makes it possible for more women to do
that. Maybe we won’t all breeze through it, but we’ll
work better with the process in a conscious manner with
the skills we’ve taught ourselves through our
preparation. The first two foundations of The Pink Kit
Method deal with some of these physical issues because
we are now able to create a mobile birthing body and
learn how to relax inside and prepare our birth canal.
The 3rd foundation of The Pink Kit Method is the
Managing Skills. We all acknowledge that Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth is a
huge event in our lives and our Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenagerren. We also know
that most of us have never been to a birth and don’t
have a clue what happens much less what to do, how to
act or behave. The Managing Skills give us more
subjective yet vitally important skills. Do you know
that women who niggle for several days are more likely
to get tired before progressive labour establishes if
they don’t have good coping skills? We can prevent that
by asking a simple question ‘What do you want to do
now?’ and learning how to calm our mind and understand
this early, kind phase of Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor
& Teenageribirth. Are you aware
that while in labour it’s vitally important to stay in
the NOW and apply good management skills at each and
every moment throughout your labour? We don’t have to
wait until the pain of labour is threatening our self
control. Instead we can stay on top of the sensations
when we apply our skills. Can you imagine working with
your husband, partner, relative or friend really well?
We can learn to form a good team between ourselves and
the person or people who are their to support us.
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth is a whole picture, not just another
contraction. We can learn these subjective skills that
work to integrate our Pink Kit preparation into our own
experience. Of course, there’s a section on when to use
The Pink Kit skills you’ve taught yourself. Our stories
also told of our own self management experience in and
around what was happening to us or around us. In other
words, there were as many women who felt good about how
they had managed labour in hospital with all the
assessments, monitoring and procedure and health issues
as there were women who didn’t feel good about how they
had managed their labour even though they had
accomplished a home birth.
Because our stories
are so varied, the goal of The Pink Kit Method has
always been passing on the labour management skills that
work well in absolutely all birth situations so that
each of us can come away from our birth feeling positive
about our self management and how well our
husband/partner coached us. Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenagerbirth is too full of
variables or the unexpected to know what it will be
like; however, we can have skills to work through the
process as it unfolds. We can have skills that are
adaptable and transportable into any birth situation. No
woman should deprive herself of positive labour
management skills regardless of her choices or the
necessity in regards to maternity care or management. In
other words, Common Knowledge Trust bypasses the ‘either
versus or’ approach to Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor &
Teenagerbirth that has become
familiar to so many of us. EITHER we will birth in
hospital with a doctor and have a medical birth OR we
will birth at home with a midwife and have a natural
birth.
As we self managed labour, most of us
felt that we had a natural birth even when there was a
great deal of medical care. We felt that way because we
felt good about how we had coped, managed and responded
to our own internal process of dilating and giving
birth. Many birth professionals admired our management
and loved that our husbands/partners were such good
coaches. They wished more couples could have such an
experience. They often felt we had had ‘lucky’ or ‘easy’
births because they so strongly felt that Child,
Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth is
so unknown there is nothing we can do to prepare for
birth. We knew we had prepared for birth and then used
our good management and coaching skills to work through
the unknown journey as it evolved. We had conscious
births.
We not only explored our own management
of labour, we also looked at the three most primal
behaviours that accompanied Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenagerbirth. They are so much
part of Life that we hardly notice them. However, the
unique qualities of Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor &
Teenagerbirth require unique
applications of these ordinary human behaviours.
The 4th foundation of The Pink Kit Method is New
Focus: Breath, Language and Touch. We will all breathe
in labour, communicate with our husband/partner and be
physically touched (or not). These are human behaviours
that all of us share. Within these three shared
behaviours there are positive ways we can use them in
labour. In the 1970s when fathers came to help us,
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth education classes focused on breathing and
relaxation techniques. As birth discussions focused more
on ‘choice’ (birth plans) and ‘information’ (informed
consent), the skills were less stressed. In fact, a new
belief around Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth grew. This belief told women
that they breathed all the time and would breathe in
labour so there was nothing they needed to know. Natural
birth has incorporated many beliefs that have actually
acted to deskill women. It’s almost as though it’s
become admirable to believe the ideal birth is
‘intuitive’ and ‘instinctive’ and requires little
knowledge which might interfere with the process. The
stories that created The Pink Kit Method approaches
clearly show us that when we have positive birth skills,
we respond to the process of Child, Juvenile, Kiddic,
Minor & Teenagerbirth with a
consciousness unparalleled.
Unlike our
traditional counterparts who are surrounded by people
closest to us who will help us each step of the way
through Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth, we are often left alone either in
hospital (checked periodically) or a home by midwives
who are giving us the space to discover our own process.
Either way, we can take our amazing Child, Juvenile,
Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth and
coaching skills with us. When we do this, our births
become a conscious highlight in our lives. Through our
self learned skills we brought attunement to the birth
of our Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerren.
New Focus: BLT is split into the
Birth and Coach role. We have different jobs do to in
labour and giving birth yet we can use the same
knowledge to do those jobs well. When we work together
in labour, we develop close bonds with our husband,
partner, friends or relatives. It’s far better to bond
with those close to us than our birth provider no matter
how wonderful. As a labouring woman, we are required to
look within ourselves. When we coach our partner, we are
looking at how she is responding to the process from
within herself. When we both use The Pink Kit Method,
then we stay on the same track.
In the Breath
section, we learn that there are only 4 ways humans
breathe. Two are positive breath behaviours in
Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth and two indicate that a woman isn’t coping
well with the sensations. From the birth role, we can
learn how to use breath as a focus, expand areas or
relax specific areas of our body. From the coach role,
we can learn how to hear whether a woman is managing the
sensations, how to model good breathing behaviour to
help her stay on track and how to help her expand and
relax specific areas.
In the Language section, we
can learn the specific language that really helps women
to relax. We often use general language such as ‘relax’
when we see tension in a labouring woman. She is most
likely to turn to you and snarl. ‘you try’, ‘I’m trying’
or ‘shut up’. Instead we can specifically tell her to
‘soften in your lower back’. This gives her the place
and action and she’ll to do it. She’s momentarily
forgotten or not observed that specific tension because
the sensations at the moment are BIG. In this section we
can learn that verbal messages take a wee bit of time to
go in the ear, through the brain, to the body and back
to the brain. So you learn about the importance of
pausing.
Language or communication can be
non-verbal as well. In labour the ability to give each
other cues to convey information is important.
Particularly in the rigorous part of labour, women short
form communication.
In the Touch section of New
Focus you learn the type of touch that produces deep
internal relaxation. This form of deep, rising touch
allows all the connective tissue (fascia) to relax. Most
people don’t realize the importance of fascia and how
much tense can be stored there. Most people think of
tension being caused by muscles. Try this so you can
understand the difference between muscles (which is part
of soft tissue or connective tissue) and fascia (which
is also part of soft/connective tissue and what we need
to relax in labour along with specific muscles).
Sit or stand and look straight ahead. Relax your
head, neck and shoulders yet still keep your head facing
forward. Put your index finger on your forehead about an
inch above the outer edge of your eyebrow. Remember keep
your head facing forward no matter what. Start to apply
pressure to turn your head and continue to increase that
pressure. Hopefully, you’ll notice that it takes very
little effort to keep your head facing forward even when
you apply a great deal of pressure to turn your head.
In labour, that simple fixed or frozen soft
tissue (inside of the container) can stop mobility,
openness and space. Babies need space to move through
you. Couple that fixed or frozen fascia with tensing up
your muscles, then you can imagine why the object might
have a struggle to get out of the container. Go back to
your exercise above and add muscle tension. Our coach
can see muscle tension but not see connective tissue
tension. Both the Birth and Coach role need to work to
reduce that tension, particularly when it’s inside.
When we combine all these Pink Kit skills, this
common sense and self knowledge we gain then we can
approach Child, Juvenile, Kiddic, Minor & Teenagerbirth with confidence in our ability to
move through the process of giving birth. We don’t have
to like one moment of it. Often our own greatest
personal achievements are the accomplishments we have
during challenging experiences.